How to prosper in brewing coffee

Did you know that just a single kilogramme of roasted coffee can turn you into a millionaire?

Yes! This is real.
Today, we are going to show you how you can become rich through brewing coffee, sell and earn clean money.
Coffee brewing or brewed coffee ideally is made by pouring hot water onto ground coffee beans, and then allow brewing. There are several methods for doing this, including using a filter, a percolator, and a French press.

Start
So, how does one start this business?
Mr Gerald Katabazi is one of Uganda’s baristas-he brews coffee and it is this business that changed his life financially.
He shares with Prosper Magazine that with product, passion, commitment, location, and right employees all combined are the key important areas for one wishing to begin a coffee shop.

“You have probably grown coffee on your farm, harvested it and may be you are wondering where the market is? Coffee business is very highly profitable especially if someone brews it,” Mr Katabazi shares.
He says the opportunities range from different product developments that one needs, others look at the cup value, arts and crafts using roasted beans, green bean, tourism attractions, vending fibre packaged Kiboko.

Investment Capital
Ideally, starting capital ranges from Shs5m to Shs200m depending on the size.
The location ordinarily takes away the biggest percent to the revenues; a working coffee house should be able to deliver between $20,000 (Shs72.6m) to $300,000 (Shs1b) annual turnover, monthly should be between $3,000 (Shs10m) and $4,000 (Shs14.5m) that’s an up market outlet.

Ideally each kilogramme from a roaster costs Shs30, 000. Each kilogramme of roasted coffee beans produces 120 cups. Each cup is sold at an average price of Shs5, 000. This is translated into Shs600, 000 earnings per day.
This means every month one gets about Shs18 million from the 3,600 cups of coffee sold and annually this comes to a turnover of about Shs216 million.
Once you have secured the investment capital, experts say that there are other things you have to look at for this business to break-even.

Considerations
Location. If you have an excellent location, and assuming that you do everything right, you can expect a monthly gross of about Shs18m.
To be able to earn this look out to places next to colleges and universities, on a commercial walking street, heavy foot tourist traffic areas, at airport, malls and shopping centres or in neighbourhoods of commercial streets.

Marketing is key in this business because it creates visibility to your customers.
Mr Katabazi shares: “Think about the price difference between a cup of house coffee and a latte! One of the best ways to build your coffee business is by developing an effective, customer friendly espresso drink based marketing program.”

Challenges
Just like any other business, one of the most challenging questions is lack of good and quality coffee to offer to consumers. Reason being that 95 per cent of Ugandan coffee is exported and only 5 percent consumed locally.
And yes consumed only in Kampala and then upcountry entrepreneurs resort to cheap, husks packed by local unskilled roasters and picked on supermarket shelves. However, with the increasing number of middle class community and tourists visiting the country, this is a profitable business for one to start.

Advice
First have a business concept, build up a business that is well calculated, coffee shop is a good business when structured very well and knowing the right coffee source to avoid quality crush. Then, build up a coffee business plan, before anything, invest in the right brewing machines, hire right people and simplify the menu planning.
“Most coffee consumers look at the value for money, meaning the product should be of the best quality, served in a cool and clean environment, however, enterprises that operates downtown got many issues to deal with noise,” Katabazi shares.

This will be the most important factor in your success or lack of it. You may have the best coffee in the world, but if the prospective customers can’t see you, or your access is not convenient, your chances of success will be greatly reduced.